PHILADELPHIA — Claude Giroux says he hasn’t put any of his hockey sticks to good use since Aug. 15. Presumably, he hasn’t picked up any golf clubs since then, either.

“I’m going day by day, but every day it ... today, I feel better,” Giroux said Tuesday, the eve of the opening of Flyers training camp at Wells Fargo Center. “It’s just how I’m going to feel.”

Giroux, who for a star hockey player is usually a pretty good golfer, didn’t know how to feel after taking what he felt was a normal swing while practicing last month for a charity tournament near Ottawa. He flubbed the club into the ground behind the ball, only to see and feel the club shaft shatter in his hands. He later learned that he’d severed tendons in the right index finger, an injury that would require surgery and likely five or six weeks of rehabilitation.

“Just swung a club and it shattered at the grip and one piece went into my hand. That’s it,” Giroux said. “Just a bad shot for me, I guess. I don’t know, it happened so quick. I just shot and it shattered.”

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But Giroux’s recovery has thus far been a shattering success. He seems ready to start camp in great shape, and figures he’ll start using his sticks — the hockey kind, not those other ones — pretty soon.

“I think I can start touching pucks in a week, maybe,” Giroux said. “We want to wait until it heals and I get my full motion on it. When I do that’s when I can get out and start stickhandling.”

Under that time frame, Giroux seems hopeful he’ll be available to start the season, which kicks off at home Oct. 2 against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s been a long offseason for the Flyers captain and his team, but the club’s offseason acquisitions, including Vinny Lecavalier, Mark Streit and Ray Emery, have boosted optimism.

“Everybody learned from last year. It was a weird season with the schedule and all that stuff, but it was that way for every team,” Giroux said. “So learning from what happened last year, we’re coming in with a different mindset. You can just feel it walking into the room, that everybody’s excited and motivated.

“As a team, we’re not satisfied with the results we had. ... We’re still a young team and I think the best way to learn is to fail. When you fail, you change up. As a team, we’ve learned a lot. We’re going to take this as motivation.”

Missing the playoffs has spurred similar reactions outside of the Flyers’ locker room. Upstairs in the owner’s suites, down a flight to the management level ... there was a little bit of urgency and motivation there, too. Money was spent, older players brought in. It seems clear the thought was that the Flyers lacked in some way for experience and leadership. As captain, Giroux knows he might have to answer for that this season.

“I wouldn’t say, ‘lacking,’ but we were a young team,” Giroux said. “We had a lot of players under 25 years old, but we’ve got to learn from it. With Danny (Briere) leaving (for Montreal), that’s a lot of leadership that’s gone. But to get Vinny and Mark Streit, they were captains on their old teams, and with (Ray Emery), to get those guys in, obviously it’s good for young players and myself.”